For some reason, a lot of hackers seem to have an obsession with jamming video game consoles into smaller boxes with screens. It’s more portable yes, but be honest — how much use is it actually going to get? Regardless, [RedmagnusX] has just finished up what might be the first Wii U laptop.
He’s using a 17″ laptop screen from a Dell XPS M1730, which he’s combined with a case of his own design that fits the Wii U’s guts. To interface the screen from the Wii, he picked up a driver-board from NJYtouch. He’s also managed to cram the power regulator into the laptop, and a few small speakers for audio output. He also integrated the sensor bar into the top of the unit. Not too shabby!
It reminds us a lot of this older Xbox 360 laptop mod, and looks surprisingly similar. However our favorite case mod still has to be the PlayBox — [Eddie Zarick’s] beautiful combination unit featuring an Xbox One and the PS4 in a single 22″ box.
[Thanks for the tip Jon!]
How much use is it going to get? The answer is the same for pretty much all of my hacks. It’s the journey that I’m interested in. Once I get there I’m bored.
That sentiment doesn’t match up very well with the Hackaday Prize idea of “solving serious issues”.
But also I think this result is great. It’s very much a “hack” in the way that it re-purposes proprietary stuff in ways that the creators didn’t expect. Learning and all is important, but I think it’s more about making something you want.
Such a missed opportunity of building the controller into the base and making a giant DS
Some WiiU games require the gamepad to be moved around, independent of the upper screen, allowing the player to aim, change the view point etc, wouldn’t be effective if they were joined.
Now if it was a Gamepad that could be decoupled from the base when such a need arose, that would have been cool
I can say for sure a full size portable console with attached screen would have been nice while in hospital. TV rentals were overpriced and you can only watch so much Maury and Dr.Phil before you begin to lose intelligence.